


The Always Puzzle

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arthur Conan Doyle Canon References, Background Case, Cancer, Comfort Food, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, I'm Sorry, Literary References & Allusions, Operas, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character, POV Joan Watson (Elementary), Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post-Season/Series 05, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Some Humor, Tea, The Iliad References, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 04:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14393940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: I became so intensely worried about Joan and Sherlock and their relationship post-s5 that I wrote this. In which our intrepid consulting detectives experience tribulations, and emerge from them. There is opera. There are canon references. There is possibly an intolerable deal of sentiment.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have attempted to keep this grounded and in-character. (And I've done a weird amount of poking around websites dedicated to explaining oncology research and treatment to the layperson. Corrections on the medical front welcomed, though the fic's focus lies elsewhere.) The chief place where I've moved beyond canon is in making Sherlock and Joan's relationship a bit more tactile, accommodating her preferences. Both their habits of touch and their use of _The Iliad_ move on from here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14070132/chapters/32912022 but it's not necessary to read that first.

At 3:00, her phone alarm goes off.

“Sorry, Marcus,” says Joan, swiping right. “Must dash.” She only realizes after she says it that it is Sherlock’s turn of phrase, not hers.

“Aw, come on — we’re about to get beyond the paperwork phase.”

“Sorry,” she says again; she is already gathering her belongings. “You’ll just have to dazzle them on your own. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Ah, and today’s the day I was finally going to recite _Die Hard_ to a perp.”

“I take it all back; do it, and let me see the video afterwards.”

“Yeah yeah. See you, Joan. And thanks.”

“Always a pleasure.”

***

She arrives early, tea in hand. She does not pick up a magazine. She does not even pick up her phone.

“Have you checked in?” asks the receptionist.

“No, I — I’m waiting for someone.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” says the woman next to her, after another 10 minutes. “Sometimes they’re just running a little late.” Joan looks up: the woman’s pallor is highlighted by her gaudy silk headscarf.

“Thanks.”

“First day?”

Joan laughs shakily. “It shows, huh?”

The woman smiles. “I’m Nancy. Thursdays are my day, too.”

“Joan. Nice to meet you. I — ” she cannot resist a glance at the empty hallway — “I may not be here every week, but I thought I should come today, you know?”

“It’ll mean the world,” says Nancy matter-of-factly. A young man with a clipboard appears in the doorway. “That’ll be me — see you around, Joan. And good luck.”

“Yeah, you too.”

He notices her presence immediately, of course; she can see the moment his face changes. When he reaches her, she realizes she has stood up from the chair.

“Watson.”

“Sherlock.” She gestures with the waxed paper cup. “Earl Grey, loose leaf.” He wraps his hand around the cup just below her own. To her surprise, he hooks the fingers of his left hand into her right. “Hey.” She slides her hand up to his wrist. “You okay?”

“Never better, Watson.” The fleeting smile tells her it is a joke.

“Glad to hear it. Let’s get out of here.”

***

He insists on continuing to answer Captain Gregson’s calls, on continuing to work. Joan forces herself to breathe deeply, to repeat her professional truisms about patient needs and patient autonomy. And when none of these comfort her, she comes back, always, to who he is. Sometimes, he falls asleep on her shoulder, mostly in taxis. Once, they are taking the subway — measuring the intervals between stations, allowing for weather and time of day — and a woman opposite gives her a look of such sympathetic anxiety that she nearly wakes Sherlock up on the instant so that they can continue their conversation, so that she can pretend to forget, for a little while longer, how fragile their shared life is.

On his last day at the precinct, he breaks a coffee mug. It is not a careless gesture; he simply misjudges the space, misjudges his own movement. “Hey, man,” says Marcus, barely looking up from his computer, “you gotta stop doing that.” And then, because Sherlock does not move, he does look up. “Hey, don’t look like that,” says Marcus. “It was hideous. We get them from conferences every year. I’m convinced the graphic designer committed an undetected murder once and has been contemptuous of the police ever since. Sherlock!” Marcus’ raising his voice is a rare enough occurrence that several detectives join their transfixed consultant in looking at him.

“I’ll clean it up,” says Sherlock. He cuts himself on one of the larger pieces of ceramic. Joan tries to believe he didn’t let it happen on purpose. 

“Is there something going on?” asks Marcus, when Sherlock is still sequestered with a cold tap and the first aid kit. 

“You should ask him,” says Joan.

Marcus gives it 20 minutes after Sherlock rejoins them. “Look,” he begins.

“The depth of the parsley in the butter!” exclaims Sherlock, and for one vertiginous moment Joan panics. Then he explains, and they set the machinery of their arrest in motion.

“Look,” says Marcus again later, when it is just the four of them, in Gregson’s office for one of the meetings Sherlock insists on calling conclaves, “you can tell me it’s none of my business if you want, but — ”

“Cancer,” says Sherlock tersely. Joan watches the other men’s faces. Gregson goes still and watchful, blue eyes suddenly focused. It is Marcus who rears back a little in his seat, whose jaw slackens just a little, who has to visibly control himself. Joan watches him swallow.

“Of the brain,” supplies Sherlock, as if helpfully, and Joan suppresses an impulse to kick him, shout at him, slap him with a file folder as if this were an unremarkable entry in the long, long catalogue of his insensitive remarks.

“Shit,” says Marcus, and then adds quickly: “Sorry.” 

To Joan’s surprise, her partner’s response to this is a smile, genuine if unpracticed, beginning with a tug at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t mention it,” he says. “An entirely appropriate response, in my view. Sorry about your mug, by the way.”

Marcus laughs then, softly, incredulously, as is his wont when confronted with Sherlock at his most outrageous or his most extraordinary. He runs a hand over his head. When Joan looks over at Gregson, she finds his eyes on her.

“I will of course,” says Sherlock, far too quickly, “remove myself at once from all ongoing investigations if you feel, Captain, that…”

“Sherlock,” says Gregson. He clears his throat. “We’ve just wrapped up a multiple murder because you noticed the damn parsley. Clearly, getting rid of you is the last thing I want to do. Now or ever. But if you…” He clears his throat again. “I don’t know how much you know about…”

“Nothing,” says Sherlock. Joan watches his left hand tap out the rhythms of a Paganini caprice against his thigh. “I should say, rather, not nearly enough. It has been borne in upon me that it is unconscionable to risk — ” he gestures from the wrist, taking in them, the room, the precinct — “this against the possibility of some sudden loss. Of memory, of control, no matter.” Marcus stirs in his chair. 

“Watson is guilty of nothing,” says Sherlock swiftly, “except… a friend’s overindulgence.” He looks over at her, and her heart drops. 

“You haven’t messed us up,” says Gregson, his tone professionally reassuring. “You haven’t even broken any contract. But if what you’re saying is true — hell — then I can’t risk you on-scene. And as your friend,” he continues, raising his voice, “I trust you’ll tell me what you need.”

Sherlock stands up from his chair, and Joan follows suit. His assurance is suddenly lost, his face blank with weariness. “Captain.” He nods jerkily. “Marcus. You see even hideous mugs can have their uses.”

“Yeah,” says Marcus. “Let us hear from you, okay? I mean — about how you’re doing, not how you’ve solved our latest unsolvable case.”

“Of course,” says Sherlock, as if it were obvious. “I wish you joy of the Abernetty affair. Come, Watson.” And because her heart aches for him and for them all, she obeys without demur.


	2. Chapter 2

Sunday morning, with Mendelssohn’s violin concerto on the stereo: it is the kind of spring day when the city feels newly washed in rain, flooded in sun. Even in their corner of Brooklyn, the air is rich with birdsong. They are sorting through the voluminous paperwork on what Sherlock insists is a crime syndicate operating out of Brighton Beach. She’s less sure; for one thing, she can’t see how the balalaika player fits in. When he gets up, she assumes he’s going to make an alteration to their evidence board. But then he turns, and leaves the room moving too quickly, too jerkily. She hears him stumble on the stairs. She gives him ten minutes before grabbing the blanket off the couch and following him.

Joan knocks on the door of the bathroom. “I’m coming in.” He makes no sound of protest or assent. She finds him huddled unhappily against the wall, looking as though he’s forgotten what to do with his limbs. 

“Watson,” he says, through clenched teeth, “you don’t have to…”

“I know I don’t have to.” She wraps their ancient wool blanket around him, lets her palm rest for an instant between his shoulder blades. “But you’ll catch your death of cold otherwise.” She resists the temptation to warn him about the dangers of dehydration; he knows them well enough. Her instincts, trained and otherwise, are to stay with him; but she knows his preference for private misery.

He returns downstairs less than an hour later, still draped in the blanket. She takes off her reading glasses. 

“How goes the work?”

She hesitates a moment. He is still pale, and his t-shirt clings to him, marked with the sour sweat of illness. Joan sighs. “13 more suspects to get through. Here’s your stack. I’ll make us tea.”

***

She comes back from yoga practice to find him scowling at himself in the bathroom mirror.

“Everything okay?”

His frown deepens. “I had presumed,” he says, in tones of the deepest disgust, “that _all_ my hair would fall out.”

“Oh,” says Joan.

He gestures, loose-fingered, at the offending portion of scalp. “It’s like a misplaced tonsure!”

Inspecting him, Joan cannot help giggling. “I’m sorry,” she says, and tries to stifle her laughter. “It’s just that — it is, and you’d make such a terrible monk.”

“I would,” he agrees. Now, he looks merely solemn, rather than outraged. There might, she thinks, even be a hint of mirth in the twist of his mouth. “I was once informed,” he says, absolutely deadpan, “that I had particularly well-marked supra-orbital development. This observation was followed by a request for tactile investigation of my parietal fissure.”

“So you’ve met someone worse at flirting than you are.”

“He wasn’t flirting.”

“Yeah, right. Anyway: do you want me to shave your head again?”

He sighs. “If you would be so good, Watson. It would be preferable to the alternative.”

“Do you…” she begins, as he hands her the clippers. “Don’t you want me to shower first?”

“Unnecessary on my account, Watson. I actually find your musk quite…” He trails off.

“Think carefully,” she admonishes, smirking at him in the mirror. “You’re on shaky ground with _musk._ And I’m holding a dangerous implement.”

He holds her eyes in their shared reflection. “Comforting, Watson.”

“Oh,” says Joan.

***

She writes him notes in Spanish, English, Mandarin. He translates the reminders of where she is and what case they’re working into Pashto, Russian, French. One day, she comes home to find that his translation has trailed off into a Jacques Brel song. _Et chaque meuble se souvient…_ She crumples the piece of paper in her hand, but then carries it to her bedroom, puts it, still crumpled, into her nightstand drawer. (She refuses to think about how few samples of his handwriting she has, about how curiously intimate it feels to contemplate the uneven strokes in old-fashioned ink, about how vividly she can imagine wanting such a relic.) She asks him if he thinks they should try codes. She says she needs the practice. They work out a cipher involving hen-pheasants, and one that relies on stick figures. The latter — spelling with raised knees, kicked-up feet, waving flags — Joan finds absurdly jaunty. Sherlock professes to love them.

“You should tell Kitty,” she says, on a Saturday morning when they are both in the kitchen, pretending to be at leisure. She is reviewing case notes; he is making them smoothies.

“Already have.” 

“Oh.” She does not even try to conceal her surprise.

“She suggested she might come over.” He is enunciating his consonants with disdainful emphasis. “I observed that she if she was indeed thinking of voluntarily committing herself to a transatlantic flight with an infant, it was not my head that most needed examining.”

“She’s worried about you.”

He gives her a look of withering contempt; it’s oddly reassuring. “Obviously, Watson.” They are silent while the blender whirrs.

“And she’s family,” persists Joan.

“Obviously, Watson.” He sets down their smoothies, takes the chair opposite her.

“So?”

“So — ” he draws the vowel out like Henry Higgins demonstrating a point — “she has insisted — yes, Watson, that is the correct word — on a video chat.”

He is scowling; Joan does not bother to disguise her amusement. “And?”

“With Archie. I don’t know what she expects me to offer in the way of improving advice to a child who does not yet possess the command of language.”

“Tell him about the animals at the zoo.”

“You may recall that the last time I went to the zoo, Watson, Detective Bell and I were in pursuit of a rogue zebra breeder, who — ”

“So fix that before your video chat.”

He glares at her over the rim of his glass. “Is this smoothie rather disgusting, Watson, or have my gustatory cells betrayed me?”

It is, in fact, delicious, but she finds herself swallowing with difficulty. “One of your better efforts, actually.”

“Ah.” They are silent for some moments. She does not meet his eyes. She forces herself to continue drinking the smoothie. “I will go to the zoo, Watson,” he says softly. “Fresh air, mild exercise… all highly recommended as part of a healthful regimen.” 

Joan is terribly afraid that she is going to cry. “Say hi to the lemurs for me,” she says.

When she returns from her run a week later, she finds a stuffed lemur (all proceeds benefiting the World Wildlife Fund) on Sherlock’s desk. “What’s this?”

“Ah, Watson,” says Sherlock, emerging from the library. “Had I known you were so fond of cuddly toys, I would have acquired one for you; however…” She puts the lemur down, half-guiltily. “It’s for Archie,” he explains. “I thought it could be from both of us. He seems to like it.”

“That’s great.” She cannot help but feel that the air between them is heavy with things they will not say.

“As of this moment,” he says, brandishing the leather-bound volume in his hands, “I have resolved an enigma for a _patissier_. Would you care to accompany me to _Les Huguenots_ this evening?”

“I’d love to.”

“Excellent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @language_escapes' fic of the same title is responsible for my association of "La Chanson des Vieux Amants" with Sherlock and Joan: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916456 The line in question means "And each piece of furniture remembers..."
> 
> The lemur is taken from the gift shop of the Bronx Zoo (in case anyone was wondering): https://bronxzoo.com/. It's great. If you go, say hi to the sea lions for me.
> 
> Both the comments about Sherlock's skull and the reference to _Les Huguenots_ are taken from HOUN.


	3. Chapter 3

“How is he?”

Joan looks up in surprise from the corpse she is examining. “Still very dead. Still with intra-dermal bruising that doesn’t fit with the version of events we’ve been given.”

“Uh, no — I mean, yes, but I meant Sherlock, actually,” says Eugene.

Joan takes a deep breath. “I wish I could tell you. He’s… Sherlock. Tired, sick, still contrarian.”

“I’ve won three times in a row,” says Eugene. “That never happens.”

“I don’t,” begins Joan, and has to start again. “It might — ”

“And,” continues Eugene unhappily, “he’s using Capablanca variations. He usually prefers the Soviets, and it’s not like him to rely so heavily on a defensive game… Sorry, this isn’t helping, is it?”

Joan swallows. “As long as he can still play,” she says, “I’m ready to take that as a good sign. But… point out the Capablanca thing, if you want. If he tries to shut down on you, call him out on it.”

“Will do.” Eugene sighs, and straightens his clipboard. “Intra-dermal bruising?”

***

One night, she comes home from the precinct to find him passed out in front of the seven screens, CCTV footage spooling unobserved. If he doesn’t remember where he fell asleep, he’s going to be livid. The circles under his eyes are veined, purplish. “Sherlock.” No response. She pitches her voice slightly higher. “Sherlock.” 

“Hm?” He stirs, squints up at her. “Watson… oh _damn._ ” This is directed at the screens.

“Have you eaten today?”

“Wasn’t hungry.” He rubs his knuckles against the back of his head. She drops her bag on the floor next to him; he continues before she can speak. “I know. You have often remonstrated with me upon the subject.”

“Oh, I’m going to remonstrate some more. But first, I’m going to order us takeout.” 

They restart the CCTV footage. Joan settles into a nest of pillows at his feet, presiding over the takeout. Watching the restaurant’s back alley, she can pretend she isn’t also watching him toy with the coconut milk soup. He doesn’t fare much better with the Pad Thai. 

“I ordered extra rice,” says Joan, without looking at him. He is silent for long enough that she begins to wonder whether he will acknowledge this observation as having relevance to him.

“Thank you, Watson,” says her partner, very quietly.

She allows herself to lean against his knee. “Don’t mention it.”

“There,” says Joan, two hours later. “Screen three. Looks like you were right all along about the sous chef.” When he does not reply, she looks up at him. “Will you go to bed if I promise not to say ‘doctor’s orders’?”

“You are guilty of articulating a hypothetical and rendering it moot in the same moment, Watson.” He scrubs over his face with both hands. “But the point stands.”

***

The next Tuesday, she returns from the boxing gym to find Ms. Hudson in the hall.

“Martha!” The other woman turns, and Joan sees that her eyes are red-rimmed. “Is everything okay?”

Ms. Hudson casts a glance over her shoulder and steps closer. “It was a bad day,” she says, her voice pitched low. “I stayed late to read _The Iliad_.”

Joan swallows. “Thanks.”

Ms. Hudson shakes her head. Joan pretends not to notice that she is trying not to cry. “Don’t mention it,” she says; “I love _The Iliad_.”

Joan is conscious of treading lightly — quite literally — as she enters the living room. He is lying on the couch, fingers picking restlessly at the edge of the wool blanket. His lips are moving; she can only hope that he isn’t reciting ancient ways of describing death.

“Ah, Watson,” says Sherlock, without opening his eyes. “I was just pondering Homeric epithets.”

“Were you?”

“Mm. For you, I thought _sharp-minded_ , or _steadfast of heart._ ”

“Oh,” says Joan. She cannot remember ever having been so easily reduced to speechlessness by him, even in the early days of their partnership.

“The best of men in _The Iliad,_ ” continues Sherlock, “is arguably Patroclus. He is most often described as gentle, and yet he fights with complete abandon for those whom he loves. For his friend and partner most of all.”

Joan swallows. “Thanks,” she says, incoherently. She finds herself staring fixedly at their untidy bookshelves, at Angus on the mantelpiece, the jackknife transfixing (for some reason) the central item in his latest research collage. She refuses to lose this. 

“Tell me about Patroclus’ partner,” she says, turning back to Sherlock. She, too, has read _The Iliad_. But she wants to make him say it.

He opens his eyes. “He will fight for his friend’s sake, if not for his own.” His gaze is dark, unreadable.

She takes another step towards him. “I won’t stop fighting.”

“Of that, Watson,” he says, “I have never been in doubt.”


	4. Chapter 4

Lin has selected the place for their meeting: a wine bar on the Upper West Side. Entering it, Joan feels slightly guilty for being surprised by how pleasant it is. It is dimly lit, but not ostentatiously so; its clean, modern lines are comfortable rather than the reverse. 

“Hey,” says Joan, sliding in next to her sister at the high-topped table. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Lin finishes the email she’s writing and leans up to peck Joan ritually on the cheek. “No worries. I closed a sale and got a guy’s number.”

“I worry about you sometimes.”

“What, because I’m so wildly successful?”

“Because…” Joan pauses for an instant in formulating her answer. “Because I want you to recognize what makes you happiest when it comes along.”

Lin tilts her head quizzically. “Thanks. That’s… disconcertingly sincere of you.”

Joan shakes her head, amused despite herself. “Yeah. Get me some wine before I turn maudlin.” The waiter materializes with a speed that makes Joan wonder if his was the number Lin acquired.

“Our featured red,” he says, with polished amiability, “is a pinot noir with — ”

“Good,” says Joan. “Preferably with one of those top-up carafes.” He collects the menu smoothly enough that Joan thinks she probably wouldn’t have noticed his surprise before training as a detective. When he returns — glass, carafe, and bottle in hand — Joan forces herself to maintain the polite fiction, examine the label, watch attentively while he pours.

“Her partner’s being treated for brain cancer,” says Lin bluntly. This time, he does allow his surprise to show. Joan is too tired to dissemble or protest. She spreads her hands, as if in self-deprecation.

The angle of the bottle changes decisively before being straightened and deftly turned. “My hand slipped,” says the waiter sympathetically, and leaves before Joan can thank him, or apologize.

The sisters’ glasses clink, a little too loudly.

“Are you okay?” asks Lin.

Joan sets her glass back down. “Now you ask? No, that — that’s not fair of me. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to be fair all the time,” says Lin. “Life isn’t fair.”

“Look,” says Joan, “I’ll be right back.”

She reflects that she had believed her days of crying in the bathrooms of Manhattan restaurants to be long behind her. But here she is: ruining her mascara because life isn’t fair. When she has herself under control again, she emerges, stares grimly at her reflection.

“I have makeup wipes,” says the blonde woman next to her.

Joan swallows painfully. “That would be great, thanks.”

“No problem.” The other woman does not leave immediately; she takes a long time checking lipstick that is not smudged and hair that is not out of place.

“I’ll be fine,” says Joan. She doesn’t think it sounds remotely convincing. Her benefactress laughs nervously, aware of having been caught out in something.

“If you’re sure,” she says.

“Yeah,” says Joan, attempting firmness. “It’s just — life.”

“I’m sorry,” says the woman, and sounds as though she means it.

When Joan rejoins her, Lin is not on her phone; she is simply waiting. “So,” she says, “do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” Joan takes a sip of her pinot noir, expels a deliberate breath. “There’s a cliché,” she says, “about doctors making the worst patients. We know too much; we try to outsmart the disease; we know everything and can do nothing.”

“Still listening,” says Lin into the silence.

Joan looks down at her wine glass; she notices she has begun to twirl the stem between her fingers, and stops. “I know how fucking unpredictable this is,” she says softly. “It strips us — all of us — of the illusion of control.” She meets her sister’s eyes. “And I expected him to be a terrible patient. I expected him to be intense in his need, in his impatience, in his pain.” She bites off the sentence abruptly. 

“Because he’s intense in everything else,” supplies Lin, adding: “You don’t have to look so surprised. I have _met_ the guy.”

“Yeah.” Joan downs too much of her wine at a go.

Lin sighs. “But? You can criticize my love life again later, but we’re finishing this now.”

Joan inhales slowly. “It’s not that it doesn’t affect our life. Of course it does — it affects everything — but he’s so careful about trying not to let it. If he hadn’t trained me to observe things, I might not notice that we’ve been getting through less food and more tea, or that he’s leaving the house less often, or that he cleans the bathroom scrupulously when he’s been sick. But he is quiet, and circumspect, and never since I moved in with him have I known less about what he’s doing and thinking. I leave him notes in three languages and I don’t know how often he needs them. He can’t help letting me see his exhaustion; he never talks about it. And,” says Joan, “I miss him. The work we do together is so much of who we are, and… and he looks at evidence and gives me notes and we discuss things together in the evenings, but it’s not the same. I look over to catch his eye during an interrogation, and he’s not there. I keep expecting him to materialize at my shoulder, or steal my snacks, or sniff some unspeakable puddle, or ask an apparently trivial question that will blow the case wide open. I miss him all the time, and he’s still _here._ ”

Lin reaches for her sister’s hand; Joan lets her take it. “You’re a good friend. I’m sure he knows that.”

“That’s not really what’s at stake here.”

“That’s just the lead-up to my main point: tell him you miss him.”

“I don’t think — ”

“Yeah, yeah, he’s a very private person, you never talk about your feelings, blah blah blah. Whatever.”

“So I’m supposed to say that I’m sorry he’s dealing with debilitating symptoms and profound uncertainty about what sort of future he has — if any — but also he’s making my life harder because I _miss_ him?”

“Everyone likes to feel needed.”

Joan opens her mouth and closes it again.

Lin huffs. “You’re as bad as each other, honestly — always assuming you’re dispensable. What do they say about couples picking up each other’s habits? Never mind. Let me tell you my best/worst dating stories.”

Halfway through an anecdote about an unorthodox use of leather boots, Joan presses her sister’s hand. “Hey, Lin?”

“What? Don’t you want to hear what he wanted me to do to his — ?”

“I just wanted to say thanks.”

“Any time.” Lin smiles wryly. “It’s nice to be needed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Restaurant atmosphere shamelessly stolen from WHYM, which is apparently closed now (ubi sunt, etc.)


	5. Chapter 5

“I’m home!”

“Tell me your good news.”

She pauses with her hands still on her coat, trying to work out how he deduced it. “We solved a jewel robbery — substitutions, falsified timing, all very Agatha Christie. Cartier’s eternal gratitude doesn’t express itself in diamonds, but if I need to borrow something in future, I think it’s worth a try. Also, I give up.”

“Your step,” he says, “and the cadence of your voice. You pitch your greeting approximately a third higher when in good spirits, and there’s a falling resolution, rather than a flat note.”

“Should have guessed,” she deadpans. She goes to join him in the library. Seeing him, she stops in her tracks. He’s fully clothed, and sitting in a fairly orthodox position on the couch. But he looks at once grim and faintly lost; it’s been years since she saw such a look on his face, and she wants to pull him back from wherever he is, wants to grab onto him and demand that he tell her. She neither speaks nor moves. He focuses on her, and his expression crinkles into familiar assessment. She waits.

“You’re a doctor, Watson,” says Sherlock. “Do you not think that ‘aggressive treatment’ is an oxymoronic expression?”

 _Oh._ “I guess it is.” She joins him on the couch. She folds her hands between her knees to hide their trembling.

“Apparently — ” he gestures from the wrist — “a change of strategy has become advisable. You are familiar, no doubt, with brachytherapy.”

“Yeah. I’ve never thought much of lead aprons as a fashion statement, but I’ll find a way to make it work.” 

“Of course. Not,” he adds quickly, “that you need feel obliged to come.”

She just looks at him. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”

“Very well, Watson.”

“When?” she asks.

“In just under two weeks’ time.”

“Okay.” She forces herself to exhale. “I was going to order takeout, but… how would you feel about ice cream for dinner?”

“Capital idea, Watson.” Still she does not move from the sofa. If he tells her not to pry into his affairs, or that none should know better than she how uncertain a process self-diagnosis is, so be it, but…

“Are things getting worse?” she asks.

He frowns sidelong at her. “Define ‘things,’ Watson.”

“I meant…” She finds herself forced to look away. “Are you… having more trouble remembering things?”

He laughs: a bitter noise in his throat. “You will appreciate, Watson, that that is a question which does not easily admit of an answer.” She waits. “Your notes are not difficult to decipher. I appear to retain my languages. But — what might I not have forgotten? A case file, a chemical process, a quotation? How could we know, before it was too late?” She bites her lip; she knows he has not finished. “Patterns are challenging,” he says. “Chess moves, yoga, streets. I’ve thought of tying a red thread to Clyde. Words remain: epigone, somnambulist, facinorous.”

Joan focuses on what she can respond to. “Facinorous?”

“Archaic, meaning ‘atrociously wicked.’”

“I’ll have to try that out on Marcus.”

“Do.” He is silent for several moments, and when he speaks again, it is in a changed voice. “Shall we listen to an opera?”

She forces herself to smile at him. “Let’s. We’ve earned the evening off.”

Having changed into her pajamas and procured a pint for each of them, she settles back in on the couch, propping her feet in his lap (it was three movie nights ago that he used Euclid to demonstrate that that was the most logical disposition of their limbs for mutual comfort.)

He presses play on the remote, and she suddenly wonders if she’ll be able to do this, if they’ll be able to do this. She knows better than to ask why he picked _Tristan und Isolde_. He could give her any number of answers — he knows she loves Wagner, he interrupted her appreciation of a performance when it was last at the Met, he wants to test a theory about frequencies. But this is music of desire and dissolution, blurring the boundaries of life and death, and something like panic rises in her chest as she thinks about spending an evening with the wool blanket over both their legs, with Isolde singing about Tristan’s head and heart being death-devoted. And then she sees Sherlock’s face. He has let his head fall back, his eyes closed; one of the things she loves about him is this capacity for unselfconscious surrender. And the tension he had been carrying in his shoulders and jawline has begun to melt away. Joan forces herself to lie back against her own pillows.

They listen to most of the opera in silence; she is struck anew by how hesitant the protagonists are, how gradually they allow themselves to claim each other. The overture to the third act always hits her with the force of shock: those dark, insistent chords succeeded by the long, yearning lines that blend desire and despair, love and loss.

“Sherlock,” says Joan suddenly.

“Mm?”

“You… you will tell me if there’s anything you want from me, won’t you? You will tell me how I can help?” Tristan slips between dream and reality, between memory and hallucination. Her partner looks at her — almost sorrowfully, she thinks.

“My dear Watson,” he says, and stops. She watches his jaw work. He puts out his hand, and she grasps it before he can change his mind. “My dear Watson,” says Sherlock again, “you are the one fixed point.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I blame Bert Coules and Clive Merrison for my feelings about _Tristan_ in connection with Holmes and Watson. In the opera, Isolde is -- among other things -- the only doctor Tristan trusts, a woman with skilled hands and a fierce heart. And if I have to have feelings about those parallels to _this_ Holmes and Watson, so do you.
> 
> ETA: This is the Act III prelude and I am never ready for what it does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz4GOUYq1uY. The "death-devoted" line comes as part of Isolde's much-debated description of Tristan in her Act I narrative: "Chosen by me and lost to me! Death-devoted head, death-devoted heart..." By the end of the opera, of course, she is remonstrating with him ("Sweetest friend... You stubborn man!") because to die without her would be/is nothing less than an act of disloyalty.


	6. Chapter 6

She’s forgotten whether she’s pretending to check email, text her mother, or beat the crossword app on her phone. This is annoying, as she’s pretty sure he’s observing the patterns of her thumb movement.

“You look worn out, Watson.”

She sighs, and the vinyl of the hospital’s backless couch creaks beneath her. “Thanks a lot.”

“No, I — it was meant as an apology.”

She puts her fingertips to her temples. She _is_ exhausted; the 11th has been confronted with a string of art thefts from private collectors and the attendant nightmares of provenance records. The lead vest is absurdly uncomfortable. “You’ve always been terrible at those.”

“True,” he says, and then adds: “Come.” He taps thrice, splay-fingered, on the sheet beside him. She stares stupidly at his hand; when he repeats the gesture, she thinks of Rachmaninov’s prelude in G minor. She looks up to meet his eyes. They are, she thinks, the only soft thing left about him, large and liquid and more incongruous than ever in that narrow face sharpened by illness.

“Come, Watson,” he says again, and she revises her assessment; his voice, too, is gentle. “That’s a pathetic excuse for a couch, and you know it. If you insist on bearing me company, there’s no need for you to do it in purgatorial discomfort.”

Joan sighs, and crosses to the bed. She’s too tired to articulate the potential objections that are buzzing like a disturbed hive in the back of her mind.

“The pillows,” he says, while she takes off her shoes, “are surprisingly pleasant. I infer that they have been recently replaced. Nor have the cases lain in a linen closet long; their fabric is relaxed but they are not at all musty.”

“Good.” She cannot suppress a yawn. Before lying down, she removes the book of Rembrandts he hasn’t been looking at from his lap to the bedside table. For all his praise of the pillows, it is into the crook of his arm that she settles. “You okay?”

“Never better, Watson.”

“Liar.”

“It’s curious,” he says, after a few moments’ silence, “to think about seeds. We use the language to refer to the action of the mind constantly — as a metaphor for growth, for fecundity, for exchange. Strange,” he continues, “to think of seeds being planted in order to kill things.”

“Admit it,” says Joan drowsily, “you’ve always wanted to be a science experiment.” She feels his hum of assent as a vibration beneath her ear.

“I’m sorry about this.”

She throws an arm over him in retaliation. She would anchor him to the earth bodily if she could. “Say that again,” she says, “and I’ll punch you in the arm.”

“Mm.” It is a strangely contented sound. “I could always,” he says, “arrange a holiday for you, when this is all over.”

“For us.” He is silent for what feels like a long time.

“Very well,” says Sherlock at last. “For us. Have you ever been hiking in Switzerland?”

“Guess.”

“I never guess,” he responds, automatically. “By sea to London, train to Paris. We could stop there, if you like. I could buy books; you could go to the opera. There are direct trains to Basel… or, if you prefer, we could meander. We could see the canals in Strasbourg, and the astronomical clock. The regional cuisine is superb. And then… did you know Basel is home to 40 museums? We will admire the Holbeins and sit by the Rhine before continuing into the mountains. The air, Watson, is quite extraordinary. Even the water seems to have its own scent, which is added to those of the trees, the flowers, the very grasses in the meadows…” 

She falls asleep to the sound of his voice.

“Mr. Holmes?” 

She stirs into consciousness to find a nurse staring down at them. The woman’s scrubs are still fairly new, to judge by the stiffness of their fabric and their lack of discoloration. The hypothesis that the woman herself has been practicing her chosen profession for a comparatively short time is borne out by the confusion in her eyes, which belies her professionally unflappable smile. Joan replaces her head in the hollow of Sherlock’s shoulder. Let him handle this one.

“The same,” says Sherlock; his arm tightens slightly around her.

“And, um,” says the nurse, “you are?”

“This,” says Sherlock, with audible satisfaction, “is my friend and partner, Dr. Watson.”

“Hi,” says Joan sleepily.

“Hi. Um. I’m Violet. You’re only supposed to be here for an hour at a time…”

Joan sits up and pushes her hair out of her face. “Shit.”

“And you’re _supposed_ to stay on the other side of the room.”

“Tough,” says Joan promptly. “Give me another waiver to sign, if you want.”

“I shall pine in your absence, Watson,” says Sherlock cheerfully.

“Every hour shall seem a day,” she returns, yawning as she puts her shoes on. “The underworld runs riot without its scourge. Clyde refuses to be cheered up by Goatwhore. I’ve re-sorted all your handcuffs. The bees miss you.”

“My special regards to the _Watsonia_.”

“Of course,” says Joan. “Good night, Violet.”

When she is three steps down the hallway, she hears the hapless Violet say “Um…” And then she hears — sudden, unexpected, glorious — the bark of her partner’s laughter.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to FINA, Holmes and Watson wandering around the canals of Strasbourg together is canonical; I had forgotten about it, but now that I have been reminded, it's my mission to remind everyone else of how wonderful that mental image is.
> 
> And Basel _is_ home to 40 museums! Thanks to the Swiss tourist board for that factoid.


	7. Chapter 7

“We got him,” says Gregson.

Joan starts guiltily. “Who?” 

“Our art thief-cum-forger. When the hell did Sherlock have time to read up on Rembrandt’s brushwork?”

“Can you imagine him spending his time in hospital watching daytime television?”

“Fair point. Let’s bring this guy in.”

Her phone buzzes in the middle of a discussion of 16th-century textiles, and she jumps to her feet. “Sorry.”

“Watson.” His voice is shaken, and she falters in her step.

“Sherlock? I’m sorry I couldn’t be there — we got John Clay — are you all right?”

“Never better, Watson.”

She is still trying to analyze the cause of the tremor in his voice. “Are you lost?”

“No, Watson.” There is reproach in his tone now, but no irritation, strangely enough. “I know exactly where I am. Edith.” 

She puts up her hand for a taxi. “I’ll be right there.” 

Edith is their bench: dedicated to Edith (in honor, rather than in memory, which Joan thinks is rather nice) by husband, children, and grandchildren. Edith sits in the lee of the Met, where the afternoon sun is caught and reflected by the museum’s vast windows, where students and tourists and commuters share the park’s paths, where two consulting detectives can have a quiet word, a picnic, or a betting match on who can deduce the most about the passers-by. 

At first, she cannot keep herself from breaking into a run every few steps, but she has managed to settle into a steady stride by the time she comes within sight of the bench. He stands to greet her.

“Watson.”

“Sherlock.” It seems to her that they are both suspended, waiting for some sign. “Well?”

He expels a breath. “Well. It would seem that — I will be required to return at regular intervals for assessment and further testing, but — ”

She only realizes after the fact that she has flung herself at him, that the yelp echoing in her ears is her own, that he is holding her — awkwardly enough, but he is holding her.

“I’m sorry,” says Joan, into the fabric of his shirt.

“You owe me no apology, Watson.”

She laughs shakily. “I didn’t even warn you.”

“I was not unprepared for the eventuality, Watson.”

“I’m sorry,” says Joan again, trying to choke back tears; “I’m sorry.”

“Handkerchief,” says Sherlock, and she takes it.

“You’re the only person I know who still uses one of these,” says Joan indistinctly. A smile twitches at the corner of his mouth. She stuffs the handkerchief into her pocket. Still holding her eyes, Sherlock formally proffers his arm.

“All right, Watson?”

“Never better,” she says, linking her elbow through his.

Wordlessly they fall into step together. She is not sure which of them is leaning on the other. It is, she thinks, as if they have always moved through the world thus linked; and perhaps, in a sense, they have.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! The title is taken from this poem of e.e. cummings:
> 
> You are tired,  
> (I think)  
> Of the always puzzle of living and doing;  
> And so am I.
> 
> Come with me, then,  
> And we'll leave it far and far away...  
> (Only you and I, understand!)
> 
> You have played,  
> (I think)  
> And broke the things you were fondest of,  
> And are a little tired now;  
> Tired of things that break, and--  
> Just tired.  
> So am I.
> 
> But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,  
> And I knock with a rose at at the hopeless gate of your heart--  
> Open to me!  
> For I will show you the places Nobody knows,  
> And, if you like,  
> The perfect places of Sleep.
> 
> Ah, come with me!  
> I'll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,  
> That floats forever and a day;  
> I'll sing you the jacinth song  
> Of the probable stars;  
> I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,  
> Until I find the Only Flower,  
> Which shall keep (I think) your heart  
> While the moon comes out of the sea.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Sweetest friend ... You stubborn man!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14765645) by [NairobiWonders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NairobiWonders/pseuds/NairobiWonders)




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